in_the_media
'Diversity visas' and path from Africa may end in immigration overhaul
Posted Jun 12, 2013
Media Outlet:
WHYY’s NewsWorks
This week, the Senate takes up a massive bill that would overhaul the American immigration system for the first time since 1986. One thing that is not in that bill is a program that has, since the 1990s, become the primary route to the U.S. for immigrants from Africa. "Can you run an immigration lottery in the U.S. and say no Mexicans need apply?" asks program critic Jan Ting. "No Chinese. No Indians?" A professor of law at Temple and former assistant commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Ting calls the program discriminatory and un-American. "Our priorities are family reunification and job skills. And neither of those are reflected in the diversity visa program."